Synopsis

In one unusual Tokyo high school, education takes a backseat to brawling as warring clubs wreak havoc in the hallways and chaos in the classrooms, all vying to be the baddest team around! Although they often contribute their fair share, only a handful of students serve to stem the tide of violence in this untamed outpost. These are the few, the proud, the powerful: the members of the Juken Club!

Background

Tenjou Tenge was first published in English as Tenjho Tenge by DC Comics under the CMX imprint. The CMX release came under heavy criticism by fans for editing and censoring the sexual content. 18 volumes were released from March 1, 2005 to September 8, 2009 before CMX shut down. VIZ Media republished the series uncut as Tenjo Tenge: Full Contact Edition in 2-in-1 omnibuses under the VIZ Signature imprint from June 21, 2011 to February 5, 2013. It was also published in Italian by Panini Comics from September 2001 to August 25, 2011.

You often read it in the newspaper a teenage girl with psychically abusive boyfriend, the boy first seemed to be a nice and caring guy as time flows he begin to reveal to show his true natures and start hitting his own girlfriend.

As common sense dictates, the girl tries to keep her distance and tries to escape from his clutch. Unfortunately for her the boyfriend is the most popular jock in school , an American football quarterback. So with the
help of his loyal friends he endeavors to make her life feels like hell. Any who sides with her or shows sympathy will be targeted. Fortunately, the girl could seek her parents. and finally able to flee by transferring to another school.

I read the story in People magazine and it's a true story. The girl was lucky a few months ago i heard news about the murder of a first year university student in her dormitory room. It turned out that the murder was masterminded by her ex high school boyfriend who had been terrorizing her ever since she broke up with him. It's sad, she finally thought she was safe and could begin her new life and started dating a new guy. but then her life was abruptly stopped by a boy who thought that he loved her more than any living person in the world.

Ito Ogure must have a bitter past experience with females like being rejected many times, or they often made fun of him and shunned him. Because the manga only victimize females violence and brutality in this manga are directed toward them, read the manga and you know what i mean. especially girls who are beautiful, charming and charismatic. The girls who are beyond the reach of otaku like Ogure. Maya might be the representation of the must popular girl in ito Ogure's high school , and this is his way to take revenge on her.

Back to the manga

The essence of the manga is the story of a teenager who joined a gang because her brother was a member , eventually she realized that the gang was involved in bad things, she wanted to quit but the gang refused to let her go. The members of the gang then started to prosecute her.

She was an orphan and her little sister was too young and stupid to be asked for help ( the little sister also watched too many love dramas). It’s also combined with the story of the most popular students at school (an artifact of teen movies in 90’s) but the mangaka took it to a higher level and gave it a twist.

review

- Violence against women.
You think that because Maya and Aya are the heroes they will be cool and awesome right? Wrong Aya is a ditz and Maya is neither bright and stupid. Ogure made her an awesome warrior but a lousy leader. Maya, many tragedies in this Manga are caused by her inability to rein in her troops and developed their potency and use them. Many members of Jyuken are supposed to be very strong fighters, but Maya is often oblivious to this fact and acts individually with predictable result , she always badly wounds herself. somebody should say “ Stop Maya before she hurts herself “.

Maya is the main subject to Ito Ogure’s wrath against women , he always torture her and constantly beat her Through the hands of her abusive ex boyfriend and his gang or an unknown enemy. Why I think Ogure harbors vengeance and hatred againts women? Because 98% of lead and supporting male characters are invincible and can’t get hurt . But this manga is infamous for its violence and mutilation and the heroes are always in danger, yes it’s partially correct, because the subjects of the violence are the women they are the ones who are always in danger. Except for Aya, Ogure might have thought that she was too stupid.

- The characters have no clear motivation
. If Ogure did provide a motivation for a character’s action it will always be love, it’s seems that love is the only language that Ogure know he might have tried really hard to come up with a new idea but he eventually gave up. sometimes Ogure would not even bother to give explanation why one does specific action, Even when one knew that one’s action will maim oneself.

- Incoherent story
Psychologists often warn that Japanese manga are not good for children because villains quickly change side and become friends to our heroes . But this is worse Ogure came up with a plot but didn’t know how to execute it .
I want to give an example, but because spoiler is not allowed, I’ll use an analogy , there is a fish on table, A , B and C are ordered to keep eyes on the fish, A left to take a walk, when B and C let their guard down a cat snatches the fish.

Moments later D, E and F come. Seeing that the fish is gone D openly accuses that A ate the fish and is now taking a walk.B clearly saw A had left the house earlier therefore could reason that A there is no way A could have eaten the fish, but instead of defending A, B burst into tears and hopes that A will be back soon .

E is the leader, but doesn’t bother to question whether A really did eat the fish and to look for proof. So instead of investigating this matter thoroughly or look for A, those five reach a consensus that A ate the fish.

+ great artwork
At the beginning the artwork really suck but it gradually keep getting betting, and become the greatest artwork that i have ever seen

+characters are easy to relate to
Who doesn’t want to relate him/herself to a beautiful and handsome characters. The female are gorgeous and the male are very muscular and cool. It doesn’t matter that the characters are stupid and shallow , nobody would give a damn. And you want to keep reading Tenjou Tenge because “ I want to know what will happen to this chick, plus i want to see her naked”.

+ Definetely not a cliche
The story has its own strength, unlike other manga the story is not a cliche. Instead telling the story about a Noveu venu ( Newcomer), Ogure preserved the status quo . There is a ton of surprises waiting around the corner.
Oh yeah, considering how bad the story is, you will also learn to appreciate the work of other mangaka.

Judgement
One thing that Oh Great ( Ogure) really great is the artwork, The quality is unrivaled there will be always guys out there, who is willing to pay a few bucks to gaze upon chicks no matter how bad the story is. . A distinguished author in my country once said Quality is not a problem, as long as it is readable , it will sell well. reading this manga is like an addiction, you know it's bad for you but you refuse to stop because " people want to care for the beautiful girl/handsome hunk and want to be associated with him/her and want to be around him/her. .But please Ogure, don’t abuse it, cause people can eventually get sick of it and throw it away, or they decide not to read in the first place.

Why i am so worked up over a manga?Because The Manga romanticized abusive relationship between man and woman, but as i mentioned before, in the real life it can be really terryifying.A research revealed that women who read fairy tale like Cinderella in their childhood often kept hanging onto an abusive relationship because they believed their partner would eventually for the better, in most of the cases the men didn't change. What do ypu think will happen if a girl read tenjou tenge?

Ogure should read more books especially novels and psychology textbook to learn about causality effect and motivation.

Tenjou Tenge is a series I very much wanted to enjoy but found myself increasingly losing interest as I read on. It has a simple but enticing enough premise to draw in your attention, fantastic art to pleasure your eyes, lots of action (and nudity, if you're in to that) to keep you interested, and likeable characters with strong personalities. However, the series progresses in such a way that it loses what exactly drew people into the story in the first place, and the entire experience suffers as a result.

This review will go into the details of Tenjou Tenge and highlight its strengths and unfortunate
shortcomings.

STORY - 4/10

The setting of Tenjou Tenge starts out simple. It takes place in a high school that focuses on martial arts, and is declared a paradise for fighting amongst the students. We have our delinquent main characters enter this school in an attempt to rule it, promptly get their butts handed to them, and then join the Juken club in an attempt to grow stronger.

The Juken club is a group that focuses on resisting the enforcement group, the declared strongest fighters in the school and the effective student council. Due to the delinquent nature of the main characters and some history involving Maya, the Juken club is thrust into a war with the Enforcement group, whose outcome will decide the ruling force of the school.

While the setting doesn't scream sophistication, it doesn't need to. The story sets out to be a mindless but enjoyable ride full of action and eroticism (more on that later). And quite frankly, that's all it needed to be.

However, around the half way mark, the story takes a complete different approach and moves away from the foundation the story was built upon. What started as an easy to read martial arts manga that focused on hand-to-hand fights suddenly turned into a supernatural fantasy novel. Pulled right out of Dragon Ball, fights that were focused around martial arts turned into battles of magic via the miracle that is "Ki", with characters controlling the forces of nature and conjuring projectiles to throw at their opponents. More than once I was wondering if I was still reading the same manga. Metaphoric and philosophic messages are also littered throughout the second half, with walls of texts being thrown around left and right, completely contrasting with the first half of the manga.

Additionally, there is not one, but two very long flashbacks in this series, taking up multiple volumes each. While the first one is interesting, providing insight into the motives of the characters, and is easy to read (as it takes place in the first half of the manga), the second flashback is a convoluted mess that throws brand new characters into the mix and seemingly disrupts the pace and excitement set up directly before. After reading through it, I questioned how much I actually gained from enduring the experience. The most frustrating part of these flashbacks, however, is the almost stupidly long duration we are left without any appearance of the main characters or plot.

While the second half of Tenjou Tenge attempts to draw sophistication into the story, combining symbolism, metaphors, and motifs (the unavoidable nature of fate and desire to break free of a repeating cycle of history, for instance), the truth of the matter is the setting just doesn't compliment that form of storytelling. With such a huge contrast, the only comparable attribute of the two halves that can be used to affirm you are reading the same story is seeing the same characters throughout both halves. In any other sense, they are two entirely different stories and settings.

ART - 8/10

The art is by far the strongest part of Tenjou Tenge. Detail is put into both the characters and the backgrounds, fights and action sequences are paced well enough that they are easy to follow, and the erotic scenes seem almost disturbingly professionally drawn (To the point where I feel the manga would have been better as actual porn than a story-driven manga). There are some hiccups in quality here and there, but overall the art is consistent throughout. Though, there is a development of the art style throughout the manga, showing a noticeable difference at the beginning of the manga and the end.

Now, let's just get this out of the way: let's talk about the nudity, as this can be a game-breaker from some people (in different ways). There's a lot of it, and it's fairly frequent. Tenjou Tenge does not shy away when it comes to full nude body shots. However, I feel it's important to note that the nudity is done in both erotic and non-erotic ways.

There are a lot of scenes that are clearly there for the fan service. Sex scenes (to which there's a lot of in varying detail), panty shots, and revealing outfits are littered throughout the manga, but there is a large amount of scenes where the nudity is not done solely for eroticism, perhaps to the point where it even outnumbers the solely erotic scenes.

Nudity in Tenjou Tenge can be considered an art more so than mindless fan service. Nudity is embraced and characters are shown to not be embarrassed when their bodies are naked and unclothed. This mindset leads to empowering female characters in some situations and creates some badass, even epic, scenes. These scenes benefit from the nudity and would not have the same impact if the characters were, instead, clothed. As stated earlier, nudity in Tenjou Tenge can be considered an art more so than simple fan service.

CHARACTERS - 6/10

The characters of Tenjou Tenge are what you would expect from a typical shonen series. You have the stupid but likeable main character with latent powers (where have I heard that one before?), a female lead that falls hands over heels for the leading male protagonist the moment she sees him (original, I know), a sidekick that has some defining moments but otherwise falls into the background as more powerful enemies appear, and a mentor that helps the main protagonist get stronger.

In terms of antagonists, the first flashbacks adds some depth to the enforcement group, but otherwise they are one-dimensional and unlikeable.

Let's look at the main cast.

NAGI SOUICHIRO - A self-identified hoodlum, he has both a silly and strong personality who looks at situations simply and acts mainly on instinct. Defined with the philosophy to vanquish demons by becoming a demon, he has the blood of a demon exorcist in his veins. Due to his bloodline, he was frequently bullied by neighbors which led him to his delinquent nature. His main goal in the series is to become the strongest fighter in the school.

NATSUME AYA - Proficient with the sword, Aya is a skillful fighter who becomes increasingly important and deadly as the series progresses. She is the younger sister of Maya and immediately falls in love with Nagi when she meets him. Part of the Nastsume bloodline, she holds a special ability known as Ryuugan, or the Dragon's eyes, which allows her to see into the past, future, and other places in the present, making her a dominating force when she utilizes it.

MAKIHARA BOB - An African-American muscleman, he is friends with Nagi and is his partner in crime. With a well-built body with springy muscles, he fights using the Brazilian fighting style capoeira. While many of his interaction with Nagi are humorous, he is shown to be fairly intelligent and is observant of his opponents' strengths. He has a girlfriend, Chaiki, who plays a supporting role for Bob in his endeavor to grow stronger.

TAKAYANAGI MASATAKA - Sempai to Nagi, Bob, and Aya, he is shown to be a powerful and consistently strong character in the series. However, despite his strength, he takes on a supportive role until near the end of the manga. He is jealous of Nagi because he like Aya, but Aya only has her eyes on Nagi.

NATSUME MAYA - The older sister of Aya, she is head of the Juken club and one of the most powerful fighters at the school. She plays the role of the mentor for the members of the Juken club, especially for Nagi and Aya. There is some tension between herself and her younger sister, Aya, because while Aya loves Nagi, Nagi loves Maya.

TAKAYANAGI MITSUOMI - One of the main antagonists of Tenjou Tenge, he is the leader of the Enforcer group, declared strongest fighter in the school, and the older brother of Masataka. He has a history with Maya and her older brother, and has developed a large number of followers who follow his command.

To once again bring up nudity, among the main characters, Aya and Maya have their fair share of scenes showcasing their nudity. However, of these scenes, many of the ones involving Maya are used to illustrate her as powerful and confident rather than for pure eroticism. The same can't be said for Aya, however, so keep that in mind.

ENJOYMENT - 4/10

Emphasized in the story section of my review, the second half of Tenjou Tenge is hard to follow and takes away from the premises the series started on. While convoluted plots are not bad, it didn't compliment the setting of the story and it negatively contrasted with the first half of the Manga. Large walls of texts are thrown one after the other, and reading it all became more of a chore than entertainment.

To add to the already lengthy walls of text throughout the second half, many of these walls are simply for flavor. They don't really add anything to the plot and are solely there to add needless detail. After reading through too many flavor texts, I found myself starting to skim through the chapters, instead of intently reading every line and word as I did before. In the second flashback, I found myself even skipping full panels and pages due to the impatience that grew from the lack of notable and engaging plot. And, when I did focus and read every line and word to understand what was going on, I found myself getting confused over core developments.

What are the motives, why are these characters doing this? Why does any of this matter? Why am I supposed to care? Why is this character suddenly on a different side? Why are these characters fighting? These are questions I found myself asking multiple times throughout the second half. I even reread entire chapters preceding my current one in an attempt to answer these questions, only to end up with a little more insight than I started with and a vague idea of the context and motives. The second half of this manga is a convoluted mess, plain and simple.

Approaching the end, I found myself simply wanting to be over with it all, losing almost complete interest in the plot or characters. The only thing that kept me going was the fantastic art and the increased amount of nudity.

I feel weird stating that I was reading for the eroticism, as I normally dislike ecchi manga and animes, typically finding the latter near unbearable to watch, but the statement is true in this case. I feel the level of detail and the bold approach to showing nakedness enhanced the experience and was somewhat refreshing to see. In most ecchi and erotic manga/anime, there tends to be a lot of teasing. There is a lot of revealing clothing and censored nudity, but nothing is ultimately shown. Or, if there is, then it tends to be fairly mild. I find the experience somewhat childish and feel it takes away from the plot and overall experience; that the series would be better without all the fan service.

However, in the case of Tenjou Tenge, the bold approach to nudity with the lack of censorship gave it a somewhat mature tone, to which I felt the experience was much more enjoyable. It didn't tease or excessively flaunt the nudity, but instead used it as a means of artistic expression.

To conclude, while I found myself drawn in and interested in the beginning, the more I read the more disinterested I got in the story and found myself reading only for the fights and eroticism; the story no longer added anything for me.

Tenjou Tenge isn't a bad manga, but it certainly could have been better. Having a strong yet simple start, it drags out into a needlessly complicated narrative that resembles nothing of its former self.

The art is fantastic, but there is a heavy emphasis on nudity. While I normally consider erotic and ecchi manga/anime to be hard to digest and get into, the bold approach to nudity here worked out well and became a highlight of the experience for me.

If you are here for the action and eroticism, then you'll definitely like Tenjou Tenge.

If you are here for a consistent plot, strong well-developed characters, or exciting fights showcasing martial arts, then you'll probably leave disappointed.

Wanted to give a literal review on the series that speaks to the people hesitant about reading this. If you've looked at this manga hoping for delinquency, fighting and comedy, don't bother. If on the other hand you want action, ecchi and an array of typical shounen sounding moves, this is for you. Unfortunately, I was the former. While the plot was pretty exciting starting off, that being set in school and trying to fight their way to the top to prove they were the strongest, it basically disintegrated into a story of ancient martial arts stuff that basically made me lose a lot of
interest in it.

Story 6/10
Starts of as you would expect, really. Guy wants to be strong, guy loses to someone stronger and for some reason the main heroine magically falls head over heels for him. Starts of relatively exciting when they battle with the main villain in the first few chapters but as mentioned I have no clue where the importance of the original group lay in the later chapters. Gotta admit the flashbacks to Shins past were great, other than that things were really average.

Art 7/10
Character designs were pretty cool, not a fan of ecchi but it was full of it if you're into it, things tend to look pretty cluttered at times but you get used to it.

Characters 5/10
Something I really appreciate is depth in characters. These guys had the bare minimum. It goes from them having aspirations of being strong to being either horny toughguys or stoic toughguys. Loving the diversity.

Enjoyment 5/10
Were a lot of times I questioned if I should keep reading, decided that I was already ankle deep in the story and it wouldn't kill me if I kept going. I was wrong.

Overall 6/10
I guess for me it wasn't the greatest of things, but certainly wasn't the worst. If you're looking for an intense action manga with a ton of nudity, this is for you. If you guys are like me and were hoping to see some exciting street fights and friends overcoming adversity, I hope my review has helped you understand that you would be wasting your time.

I Keep reading the manga because of the artwork, and this is the update of my previous review. While at first readers are let to believe that this manga has a strong female in maya. The author slowly wanted to show that Maya because she is a woman is weak , cannot rule not capable to be a leaderand rule and always needs help and of course there is the breakdown. Bob's training is the best example, The training that maya gave him wasn't enough to make him able to defeat Madoka. Mitsuomi had predicted this
before and claimed he could make bob the sharpest blade.
Mitsuomi can inspire loyalty while Jyuken members were just a bunch of people who happen to hang out together and not a cohesive unit.
There is a lot of fanfic of these two and mostly written by girls, because they are indeed a shoujo comic couple.Mitsuomi is type of lead that make shoujo romance unbelievable, cool rich, the strongest guy and very good at running his organization and at doing everything. Add to the fact that Maya lives at a traditional japanese house while Mitsuomi lives in a vast mansion. don't forget the rich and haughty love rival Emi
Fighting
it's very brutal and entertaining, it's very regretable though that despite of the brutality there are only a few death.It's very weird that crying is enough to make everyone holds hands together and become friends and forget they were at each other's throat despite the fact that the person who is standing before them has just murdered your entire family. It seems that the author loved his characters too much and doidn't want to kill them
Special attention has to be given toShin. He is a very popular character, too bad he is just a Sephiroth look alike. No , he is sephiroth, it's not just psychal resemblance, shin uses a long sword just like sephiroth did , he is a nice person before he goes berserk and starts killing people just again just like sephiroth did.
Whoever wrote this manga is indecisive and a pushover.Souchiro might be the winner of the worst main character ever because of his cockiness, but instead of trying to salvage him by explaining that he was cocky because of abitter past., He gave in to Mastaka's fanboys, fangirls demand and give a bigger portion to him in the story there is even a scene where the girls accidently serviced him.
another case, is tenjou tenge special, where Maya and Mitsuomi become a couple again. It was just a desperate attempt on the part of the author to calm down the fans and salvaged his comic .
After the publication of tenjou tenge vol 22, the author searched the net to look for comments and was shocked by the comments that Tenjou Tenge is the stupidest manga because the main character (Maya) died, by doing that author literary killed his own manga. you can read this in the last page of Tenjou Tenge vol 22.
What theck with the microchip that Kurei found in Kyushu, it is supposed to contain information about the nature of relations between F and Mitsuomi. But what is the significance of the chip? Maya could just have asked Mitsuomi because they still keep in contact. Nevermind , because the chip was never mentioned again.
I am confused, if they are indeed enemies and Mitsuomi intended to destroy Juken, why the heck they often work together.Masataka could defeat Mitsuomi's bodyguards easily and according to Kurei Masaka's is the second strongest fighter in Jyuken below Maya. So why the heck they didn't just beat the crap out him?
Bob is actually an intersesting character and a good fighter, almost every one voted Souchiro as the worst character ever, but they actually liked bob. why the heck he just faded away like that.
The story is bad because the author is sexist( think that members of other gender are inferior), racist and Indecisive. However reaing this crap is highly recommended because of the ecchi

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